Tianlong Valley

We spent the last full day we had in the area exploring the great out doors and joined a tour group to see the area. We visited an old militia built to keep barbarians (or non-Hans) away from Han's territory. Originally, we were also scheduled to go see the southern segment of the Great Wall, but some issues with logistics deterred the plan.

Here's how it went: We gathered at out meeting point at 7 in the morning to find out our driver "had picked up some people" to do make some side cash so he was gonna be 30-45 min late. Then, when he finally arrived for us, there were apparently "tourism police" that were checking for overloaded buses...

ready to fit ~30 people in a 18 people bus, and our destination was 1 hour away

The solution? easy, we are gonna cut out a part of the packaged tour so we can use the ticket money for the Wall to pay for another van to take the people that could not fit...

The guide did promise we will get to see it from a distance though, and come to think of it, it's really just a long wall (but it's the wall! -some strange dilemmas here). In retrospect, it may all just be a scam to cover up false advertising from the start :(

When we arrived at the first stop, I was surprised that the militia is actually just an abandoned building off the side of the road, there were even people living within the militia, the best part: once we arrived, our guide pulled what seemed like a random grandma from the side and spoke to her in dialect and just asked us to follow her.

She walked us around the millitia and stopped at a "vendor point" where you can do some archery at a hefty price and led us back to the guide, the entire thing was about 45 mintues.

 look at all the fun you could have!

going up the sturdy stairs

After that, we were off to see another show put up by the Miao people. The chinese tourism planners seem to love shoving these things down their packages. We jokingly made comments about it being the same thing we had saw the day before, and you guessed it...it did become a re run of last night, just without the fire. 

The show started with us being served with delicious rice wine in a bowl, at this point, we also discovered our server was a performer from the night before! They made a big intro for him being the "best drummer in the village", also, back in the morning, we had see him walking around with his friends catching rides (now realizing they were probably coming here). We exchanged some funny looks and I regretted not asking him to pose for us.

this guy, instant change from "drum master" to "the wine server"

We had much more fun watching the remaining part of the almost repeated show laughing at the idea that the rest of the performers probably performed the night before as well and were also looking out for familiar faces.

Next up, our main destination of the day, Tianlong Valley, or the sky dragon valley. The valley was located about 2 hours out of Fenghuang and had been converted to a geological park. We hiked along a stream and eventually it led us to the waterfall drop where all the water would later be collected at a dam. The hike was about 2 hours both way. The water would later turn out to be the cleanest I saw while I was in China.

Oh and remember about the promise the guide had made us? At the end of the tour, the driver took us around to this shop, and from the parking lot, we could see a little bit of the wall. Then he offered us this condolence: "Its not worth the money and no fun anyway because you will never have enough time to see it all". he did have a good point...

And that wraps up the final eventful day of our week long new year trip. The last remaining part will be a 20 hours standing train rid e back to Shanghai. I will have another post about trains next time, in the mean time, enjoy some more nights shot of Fenghuang from our one and only Brian Lee.

Fenghuang

Fenghuang is a town that's stuck in time,not only did this place still has old buildings intact and well preserved, there were also very little high risers to be seen around. Even the tourist traps seemed a little less sophisticated. At least that's how it seemed it during the day.

This town's richness came from its location. Being on the borders of ethnic minority territories, the place would turn into one giant party every month when the people who "live in the mountains" all around would come in and exchange goods and news with others. In fact, people who are in remote villages still do this now a days and it's called ganji - "going to market". Unfortunately, we did not catch this while we were here.

Gangji's significance has changed since though, instead of "going to town" to get the necessities, most of the young people in rural village have left for work in the city, so ganji is done now a days because it is the last resort for the elderly left to make a living with their handcrafts. 

I also find out soon after that Fenghuang is one of the places in the Province that suffered the most from migration problem; many people, elderly men especially, find themselves unemployed, without a family after their prime time is over, and would die alone in their houses without being discovered for a long time.

Anyways, we walked around the old town after finding ourselves a place to stay for the night waiting to experience a "camp fire party", meant to show tourists like us how they roll when Gangji is in full swing.

Fenghuang actually means Phoenix in Chinese, but with this name, the amount of "Phoenix" items were actually quite little

the ethnic minorities were known for their brews (surprise surprise), they were the best tasting alcohol we've had in China

A traveler's cafe we passed filled with visitor's train tickets, a lot of them were attached with number, friendly or not, we all left our tickets here too

Once dusk came around, we headed out of the town to attend this camp fire party hosted by the Miao people. They performed some dances, drums, and witch crafts tricks with well disguised science. Nevertheless, a lot of shouting and clapping ensued.

this guy put out the torch with his mouth. lol

they eventually went on to "white man burning"

It was all good fun, especially when they burn out Jeremy's forearm hair (no other harm was done) and he received a local bar's voucher ticket.

We returned to the town discovering that as the night rolls around, the entire place is transformed into a night club, every single shop has lights, music and laser flying around everywhere. With the voucher, and the brewskies we got earlier in the day, it's safe to say our night in Fenghuang was pretty colorful...


What's next?

Fenghuang you had us all fooled

who would have guessed

as always, group shot with a new friend we met